The Saskatoon MQG met on September 26th at the Home Inn and Suites for our first sew day in a VERY long time. Nothing like opening a meeting with a controversial ice breaker. “Do you prefer to piece with cotton or polyester thread?” Polyester was the majority but not all. Pam’s trick of using up almost finished spools of thread for piecing was my favourite new idea.

Next, our educational topic was negative space. There were so many lovely examples and a few are shown below by Sherry, Bev, Deb, Nancy and Amy. Deb’s tip was to take a traditional block/pattern and pull out some of the shapes for negative space. Nancy introduced us to Notan, a Japanese concept of complementary negative shapes. See how she applied the concept to Helen Howes trees in the bottom left. She also found the book “The Quilter’s Negative Space Handbook” by Sylvia Schaefer that we can borrow from the public library. Amy showed us a quilt top she just finished in which she adapted the pattern “Country Revival” by “Sew Kind of Wonderful”. A snippet of it is in the bottom right.

So what is there to look forward to? On October 24th we have another sew day. The education topic will be Half Rectangle Triangles. Please try to make one and find an interesting pattern or video to share that incorporates these! Education is fun when we all share our perspectives. No worries if you are too busy to contribute. Watch the social media posts for some of the other amazing projects that were shown at the meeting. For example, Shari was making her paper pieced dog using a custom made pattern by pitchersboutique.com. Anne brought a stunning UFO she is finishing and that needs to be on a bed! Pam’s modern colour palette for double wedding ring is so nice. And Deb got us in the Halloween mood with her houses and calmed us with her soft-toned “Little Miss Sawtooth” quilt top that was a sew along on instagram. Bev amazed us with solids, and Amy’s block-of-the-month and puff quilts brightened the room.

Our final meetings for the year are November 28th (another sew day), and a Christmas gathering from 12 to 4 on December 12th. At the Christmas gathering, you are welcome to make anything “mini” and then share in an exchange. Participation again is optional of course. We will plan for a catered lunch or something along those lines. We will plan to do a virtual/in-person combo meeting in October/November if virtual is wanted.